During the president's town hall the other night, President Obama repeatedly mischaracterized the concerns many Americans have pertaining to their gun rights and cited faulty information to further his arguments.

Friday, January 8, 2016

...Mr. Trump touched an important nerve in opposing the political correctness that has angered the American people for a quarter century. He changed the debate when he asked for a pause in Muslim immigration until America “can figure out what’s going on.” In the age of terror, that looked suspiciously like common sense. Americans do not want America to become what Europe is becoming.

You only have to look at what is reported to have happened in Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve to get a sense that Europe’s establishment, with its politically correct thinking, is losing control. Angela Merkel is a great lady and most of her leadership has been sound as a drum, but she will probably lose her job eventually because of her epic miscalculation in accepting more than a million Middle Eastern refugees.

Her decision was no doubt driven by heart and sympathy, but it reminds me of the fall of Margaret Thatcher. In 1989 Thatcher moved to impose a change in the British tax system. This caused resentment and then unrest. She wouldn’t back down, and the next year she fell. Years later she told me what she’d learned. People are afraid, she said; they live closer to the margins than we understand. When you propose a big change you can leave people feeling as if the rug is being pulled from under them. That’s a big thing to learn, and she spoke of it with humility.

She lost her job by being too tough. Ms. Merkel has imperiled hers by being too soft. But the lesson is the same: know how close to the edge people feel, how powerless, and respect their anxiety. Don’t look down on it, and them....

President Obama spent the week defending his proposals to curb gun violence, culminating in a CNN town hall. Think about that. What else happened during the last few days that might warrant a presidential town hall?

Oh, nothing much:

Iranian protestors stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran after the House of Saud executed a Shiite cleric, escalating sectarian warfare in the Middle East

The stock market tumbled on fears of a global economic slowdown

A U.S. soldier was killed in action in Afghanistan, where the Taliban controls more ground than at any time since 2001

Iran revealed the existence of an underground ballistic missile launch site

North Korea detonated a nuclear device

A terrorist was foiled in Paris on the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre

We have entered a most dangerous period of the Obama presidency. It’s not just that every rogue actor from Kim and Putin and Castro to Maduro and Khamenei and Xi knows he has one last year to behave badly without fear of reprisal. It’s that the president and his team are isolated, aloof, detached from reality.

ISIS had accused her of apostasy after her son turned her in, the activists said. She allegedly had been "inciting her son to leave the Islamic State." She wanted to escape with him and told him "that the coalition will kill all members of the organization."

The observatory reported that the victim, al-Qasem, was in her 40s. The activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently reported that she was 35.

WamS also received information contradicting another official statement by the city police, which said the main intention of the men in Cologne was to steal from passengers and that assault was secondary. However, "what actually happened was the exact opposite," a police officer said on condition of anonymity.

"For the mostly Arabic offenders, sexual assault was the priority, or, to express it from their point of view, their sexual amusement was thepriority. A group of men would encircle a female victim, close the loop, and then start groping the woman," WamS quoted the officer as saying.

The deputy chief of the trade union for police employees (the GdP), Ernst Walter, suggested that the Cologne police's mishandling of the case could cost city police chief Wolfgang Albers his job: "I'm asking myself this," Walter said. "How could the police publish a message on January 1, saying that New Year's celebrations had been peaceful?"

"All these shocking incidents" had become known the same night, he said, adding that officers from the federal police were trying to help women and were worried that "people could have even died."

...For a while, the government's promotional efforts seemed to work, and by 1996 HMOs accounted for almost a third of the employer market.
But then horror stories of limited networks, bureaucratic hassles and care denials spread, and by 2014 the HMO market share plunged to 13%.

Over those same years, PPOs — preferred provider organizations — took off. These plans offer better coverage if you stay in network, but still provide benefits for out-of-network doctors. Consumers get to choose and pay the difference.

Since 2005, when Republicans made them possible over stiff Democratic opposition, consumer-driven health savings account plans exploded in popularity.
These offer even more consumer freedom.

In exchange for taking a low-cost, high-deductible plan, consumers can put money aside, tax-free, in HSA accounts to pay out-of-pocket costs.
Today, HSAs enroll more than 17 million Americans and have nearly $3 billion in assets.

And they've been credited with holding down health spending nationwide.

Democrats, however, loathe the idea of free people spending their own money and making their own decisions, and ObamaCare is slowly shoving them back into the HMO plans most don't want.

In today's ObamaCare exchanges, PPO plans are an endangered species. Those enrolling in Houston last year had a choice of 19 PPOs; this year, they have none....

Has Obama lost his mind? This is a man, remember, who is supposed to be admirably dispassionate; a man who is supposed to understand how the game is played; a man who is supposed to reflexively refuse to be taken in by the emotion of the moment. And yet he’s going to use a good deal of his last year’s political capital in order to tweak a few minor rules around the edges? Why? Even if we’re generous and presume that every single one of these regulations finds its way permanently into the law, he will nevertheless have done nothing substantial to further “universal background checks”; he will have instituted none of his coveted magazine limits; and he will have banned none of the weapons that he disdains. Further, he will have set no meaningful precedents whatsoever. In other words: Even if he wins this round, he will have done precisely nothing of merit — except perhaps to have pleased his base and to have convinced the most ignorant parts of the electorate that he has finally stuck his finger into the NRA’s eye. Were these serious measures, I would be squealing. Instead, I’m amused. These are the dampest of squibs.

Which is to say that Obama’s behavior is not at all rational. As far as I can see, the president has announced these initiatives for no other reason than to satisfy his burning desire to say that he did “something” to advance gun control. That he in fact did nothing of note is neither here nor there. He needs the applause line — both now, and in his retirement — and he’s determined to get it.

When I say he did “nothing of note,” of course, I mean “nothing of note to advance his agenda.” As it happens, the president has done something “of note” tonight: He has hurt his own side. Were I a gun control advocate I’d be livid with him. Livid.

Many people will awaken today to the news of approximately 100 to 150 armed militia taking control of a closed Wildlife Park Headquarters, and not know the full back-story – so here it is (Grab a coffee, because this is soup-to-nuts.):

Here’s the long version: including history, details, links video(s) and explanations... at the link.

Excerpt:

(j) In 2006 a massive lightning storm started multiple fires that joined together inflaming the countryside. To prevent the fire from destroying their winter range and possibly their home, Steven Hammond (Son) started a backfire on their private property. The backfire was successful in putting out the lightning fires that had covered thousands of acres within a short period of time. The backfire saved much of the range and vegetation needed to feed the cattle through the winter. Steven’s mother, Susan Hammond said: “The backfire worked perfectly, it put out the fire, saved the range and possibly our home”.

(j1) The next day federal agents went to the Harney County Sheriff’s office and filled a police report making accusation against Dwight and Steven Hammond for starting the backfire. A few days after the backfire a Range-Con from the Burns District BLM office asked Steven if he would meet him in town (Frenchglen) for coffee. Steven accepted. When leaving he was arrested by the Harney County Sheriff Dave Glerup and BLM Ranger Orr. Sheriff Glerup then ordered him to go to the ranch and bring back his father. Both Dwight and Steven were booked and on multiple Oregon State charges. The Harney County District Attorney reviewed the accusation, evidence and charges, and determined that the accusations against Dwight & Steven Hammond did not warrant prosecution and dropped all the charges.

(k) In 2011, 5 years after the police report was taken, the U.S. Attorney Office accused Dwight and Steven Hammond of completely different charges, they accused them of being “Terrorist” under the Federal Antiterrorism Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. This act carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum sentence of death. Dwight & Steven’s mug shots were all over the news the next week posing them as “Arsonists”. Susan Hammond (Wife & Mother) said: “I would walk down the street or go in a store, people I had known for years would take extreme measures to avoid me”.

(l) Shortly after the sentencing, Capital Press ran a story about the Hammonds. A person who identified as Greg Allum posted three comments on the article, calling the ranchers “clowns” who endangered firefighters and other people in the area while burning valuable rangeland. Greg Allum, a retired BLM heavy equipment operator, soon called Capital Press to complain that he had not made those comments and request that they be taken down from the website. Capital Press removed the comments. A search of the Internet Protocol address associated with the comments revealed it is owned by the BLM’s office in Denver, Colorado. Allum said, he is friends with the Hammonds and was alerted to the comments by neighbors who knew he wouldn’t have written them. “I feel bad for them. They lost a lot and they’re going to lose more,” Allum said of the ranchers. “They’re not terrorists. There’s this hatred in the BLM for them, and I don’t get it,” The retired BLM employee said. Jody Weil, deputy state director for communications at BLM’s Oregon office, indicated to reporters that if one of their agents falsified the comments, they would keep it private and not inform the public.

We’ve seen universities from coast-to-coast bullied into staff firings and policy changes that were meant to only aid black students. These college uprisings have been accompanied by a fierce hatred of free speech; and when combined with the bold aggressiveness of multicultural and feminist Social Justice Warriors, they’ve created an educational environment that is openly hostile to white students and faculty.

With the next presidential election only 11 months away, conservatives and Republicans would be making a huge mistake to ignore the Black Lives Matter movement.

At the close of 2015, the pot is getting ready to boil over....

The engine that drives the anger is the mainstream media, which has done nothing to seriously vet the Black Lives Matter movement. Much of the anger is caused by the inaccurate reporting that consistently vilifies the police and leaves out key details about the shooting victims. This has led to fables such as “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” which have continued to be amplified and repeated by Black Lives Matter protesters long after they have been debunked.

In fact, one of the key characteristics of the Black Lives Matter movement and the mainstream media’s reporting on it is a naked antipathy for facts. Both in real life and on social media like Twitter, leading Black Lives Matter activists are known for shutting down the speech of dissenting opinions and literally blocking anyone who disagrees with them.

The result has been a hermetically sealed activist movement that is angry and ignorant, with a hairtrigger temper and a long list of grievances that have no factual basis. Worse, their set of crazed demands have been granted time and again by officials who are too scared to speak out for fear of being branded racists.

Like spoiled children, none of this appeasement has done anything to quell the protesters’ fury. Every time that politicians or university administrators have given into the outrageous, entitled Black Lives Matter mob, they’ve learned that feeding that monster has only given it more power to make more demands....

...the current political season is set to be even more divisive than either of the last two election cycles, which had already set a very high bar for vitriol.

As the newest incarnation of the activist Left, Black Lives Matter will not back down or rest until it is either stopped by somone gutsy enough to call them out or until it gets what it wants: a bloody revolution leading to a socialist/anarchist America.

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“Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.” .....Robert A. Heinlein quotes (American science-fiction Writer, 1907-1988)